PATRICK HARVIE says the much-vaunted TV debates between Alistair Darling and the First Minister do not help in separating the personalities from the real issue of independence.

IN the final weeks before the independence referendum, it was inevitable that the media would zero-in on the one person most people associate with the cause of independence.

To some, Alex Salmond is Scottish independence. And he can be a polarising figure, with some people enthusiastic fans and others strongly put off by his personality.

I’ve met voters who see the attraction of Scotland making its own political and economic choices, but who fear that voting Yes would simply let the First Minister have everything his own way.

This isn’t helped by the format of the big TV debates in the final stages of the campaign. Pitting Salmond against Alistair Darling, these debates are turning the question of independence into an even more personalised contest between two people. It’s almost as though the voters are only being asked to choose between these two individuals, instead of thinking about the real choice that the referendum represents.

It isn’t about that of course. Mr Salmond is the First Minister, whether you voted for him or not. He’ll still be the First Minister after the referendum, whether it’s a Yes or a No, until May 2016. If he wants to keep the job he’ll then need to win another election.

As for Mr Darling, he has a UK ministerial career behind him and has never given any indication that he wants to stand for election to Holyrood.

I’ll never vote for either of these guys, but that doesn’t stop me reaching my own view about independence. These head-to-head debates were never going to capture the breadth of arguments on either side. They narrow the field of vision down to two men and their own political track record.

Of course this didn’t begin with the TV debates, though they do make it worse. Part of the problem is the SNP’s attempts to imply – quite wrongly – that a Yes vote is an endorsement of everything in their “white paper”, Scotland’s Future. By treating the referendum like an election, and trying to convince people that a Yes vote is a vote for this weighty manifesto, there is a real danger that they will alienate those who don’t support SNP policy on anything from corporate tax cuts to military expenditure.

It’s tragic really, because the exciting bit of this national debate – its beating heart – has been the creative and inclusive movement which has grown up independently of the SNP, not under its control and not bound to its policies.

In reality of course it’s that 2016 election which will determine which party – or parties – receive a mandate from the voters for their policies. A Yes vote is not a vote for the white paper and its contents. There is only one question on the ballot paper next month: Should Scotland be an independent country?

If the campaign to win that vote only manages to reach people who like the SNP’s policies, rather than those who see other possibilities for Scotland’s future, then Mr Salmond and his colleagues shouldn’t be surprised if they fall short. Scottish independence can be won, but only if the campaign reaches beyond the ideas in the SNP’s manifesto document, and expresses the broader ideas which have been part of the Yes campaign.